Finally! A reason to be vaccinated

"Yes, COVID-19 can cause erectile disfunction."

       Headline in a report by the Cleveland Clinic

 

Getting America vaccinated is slow going. Many Americans say "no thanks" and some people dig in and say "no way."

Cleveland Clinic's illustration

Even death by suffocation isn't a sufficient motivator for some. 

Policy-makers search for ways to increase America's vaccination rate. Data on the unvaccinated in ICUs and patients on ventilators isn't enough to change minds. Lottery tickets don't do it. TV ads don't persuade. Employers issue vaccination mandates, which cause resentment and resignations. Government vaccination mandates cause backlash and accusations of government over-reach. Some people, especially young and healthy men, feel immune.

Some vaccination-supporters try scolding and shaming. Michael Trigoboff, who sometimes comments here, suggested trying peer-to-peer messaging:

Angry denunciations by urban liberals of rural people for prioritizing individual freedom over getting the vaccine are clearly not helping. Why not widely publicize statements by unvaccinated rural people who ended up in the ICU with COVID and who now wish they had gotten the vaccine? At this point, many rural people despise urban liberals (who, by the way, massively return the favor), and will not listen to them, or possibly even do the opposite just to annoy them. But there is a good chance rural folks would listen to their own.

"Malcolm," who also sometimes comments on this blog, suggested:

Spread the word that COVID survivors are like six times as likely as those of us who’ve had our shots to become impotent. As we speak, they are trying to figure out if this soft dick syndrome lasts 6-12 months, or the rest of their fearful lives. I’m of the belief that most “real men” care more about getting floppy dicks than they do about their alleged concern about communism, socialism, liberty or freedom. “Hiya, Floppy? Still looking for a new girlfriend?” 

BTW, I’ve confirmed this issue at several (legitimate) medical sites.

Maybe Malcolm is onto something. This blog has noted that some anti-vaccine messaging is about macho courage in the face of COVID. Vaccine refusers are too tough to care about COVID. Old guys men lying in hospital beds on ventilators are an image of "the other guy," someone weak. Denial is easy, maybe inevitable. But a young man knows his penis has a will of its own. No one wants to be that guy in the Cleveland Clinic photo.

Is COVID-caused impotence a real thing? There is data suggesting it is, and from credible sources. The Cleveland Clinic reports that "blood supply to the penis can become blocked or narrowed as a result of a new or worsened vascular condition caused by the virus."

WebMD reported it this way:

Researchers armed with an electron microscope found coronavirus particles in penile tissue samples taken from two former COVID-19 patients who became impotent following their infection, which had occurred six and eight months earlier. . ..

"We found that the virus affects the blood vessels that
supply the penis, causing erectile dysfunction," said senior researcher Dr. Ranjith Ramasamy, director of the reproductive urology program at the University of Miami's Miller School of Medicine. "The blood vessels themselves malfunction and are not able to provide enough blood to enter the penis for an erection."

Forbes headline

Information on COVID-related erectile disfunction is drifting out from academic and hospital journals into the general media. 

It is an idea that could move the messaging needle, but there is a problem with it: The occurrence is apparently uncommon. If men who got COVID immediately began complaining that they had ED, we would know it. COVID-linked impotence has the problem that plagues the entire COVID messaging universe: Most people survive COVID. Tens of millions of people caught COVID, then lived to tell acquaintances that they got over it with no apparent lingering effects, including their erections. That fuels the notion that COVID-mitigation efforts are overdone. What's the worry?

In the opposite direction is the fact that the USA has 320 million people, and even a low incidence of hospitalization and death--less than 1%--when dealing with the full age-range of people who contract COVID, still means 700,000 deaths and counting. The incidence of dying in an armed robbery or kidnapping are far less than one percent, and yet people fear it, spend money to defend against it, and lock their doors. We protect against remote misfortunes. For the elderly, the overweight, the ill, and the immune compromised, the risk is not remote. It is the equivalent of living in a very bad neighborhood.

Currently, young men don't think they live in one. If data begin to show their erections are at risk of being stolen, they will know the neighborhood changed.

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